posted 29 June 2001 09:37 PM
The saying "everyone has a right to his opinion" has been somehow misconstrued as "all opinions are equal". They are not.

It's my intention to start a thread where we can link and discuss columns or editorials that irk us or earn our kudos. I expect, like me, there might be other wannabe columnists with a bitter axe to grind. So, let's have fun, shall we?

I feel like Dr. Lecter, and I want to ask Kenneth Whyte Editor-under-Conrad of the National Post if he wants his bowels in or out.

I'm not familiar with Mr. Whytes body of work. Perhaps he has complained about one party (tory) rule in Alberta or Ontario as much as he's complaining about "one party" (liberal) rule federally. But, then I bet not. Hypocrisy is viewed as virtue on the right, after all.

Floating the idea that the real opposition should be newspapers? (Gufaw!!) Sober, reasoned debate from the "If it bleeds, it leads" crowd? We've already seen the National Post's political wisdom with their backing of Stockwell Day. I mean, if Whyte had any sense of personal embarrassment, he'd leave the subject alone.

Think tanks as opposition? I've seen more holes in the research of the Fraser Institute "shill tank" than Panzers had at Stalingrad.

Politicians are insufferable as opposition. Having journalists and corporate catamites as opposition would take an insufferable condition and make it ten times worse.

I've just started reading the National Post lately. It's kind of like the Toronto Sun with a suit and tie.

Whyte goes on and on and on.... and really only offers up a tired old solution: The Alliance and tories should band together.

Well, If I was a tory right now, I'm not sure I'd want the Alliance millstone around my neck. The Alliance, which continues to fragment faster than an atom at Fermilab, is not to be so easily separated from the National Post, either. If I was a tory, (just before I slit my wrists for that awful offence) I'd tell Whyte, and the Alliance to take their hairbrained schemes and pound salt. Not that there is no utility in what Whyte says. Given the track record, I might just take note of what is said and do the opposite.

I can only guess that the real source of angst for Whyte, and the rest of the right wing, is the fact that the Liberals are really not so crafty and their best efforts could not unseat them. The right fumbled the ball, big time. In fact, their best efforts only seemed to strengthen the Liberal beast.

I mean, really. How embarrassing for them.

Perhaps, if Whyte is serious about unseating the Liberals, he and many others might give serious thought to switching allegiance to their hated foe, and do for them what they have done for the "Alliance."

Mr. Whyte vents: "Civil society is unelected, inchoate, and what leadership it possesses has shown an irresponsible tendency to countenance street violence and other thuggery."

I'll give Whyte credit for being well read and knowing the origins of the word thuggery. I see he's no different from the usual polemic prone columnists the right is so fond of using. The use of that word transcends the border between the hyperbolic and the slanderous.

posted 29 June 2001 10:10 PM
If I see Mr Kenneth Whyte on the street, I plan to make a citizens arrest for first-degree abuse of a thesaurus. But I digress...

I'm embarassed to admit it, but I've subscribed to the National Post practically since it's inception. Why? Mostly because it's cheap (Although I recently subscribed to the Globe as well. Six dollars a month - what a deal!). The first place I flip to every morning is the editorial pages, where it never ceases to amaze me that they don't have a dissenting point of view ninety-nine percent of the time. It's incredible. Sure, the odd Mark Kingwell piece is included now and then, but the column is always focusing on some apolitical subject such as the arts or popular culture. Besides that, it's a constant cavalcade of conservatism: Steyn, Corcoran, Nickson, Coyne, and other like viewpoints parachuted in from guest writers, mostly wackos from the Tom Flanagan / Ted Morton school in Alberta or the Washington Post. Moreover, the reporters by and large are complete lapdogs. Reading the Post reportage regarding Conrad Black being denied his peerage, my retinas nearly detached due to copious rolling of the eyes. I mean, I'm not naive enough to think that they're going to go after their boss with an unsheathed sword, but the whole piece was unabashed "let's all thank our various Gods for St Conrad". The article planted this giddy image in my head of Black standing in a field on a cloudless day, meadowlarks perched atop each shoulder, deer eating lumps of sugar from his outstreched hands and various woodland creatures dancing around his Gucci shoes. It was just that transparent. It's too bad it's not archived so you guys could read it for yourselves.

When in high school, I was almost convinced that I was going to enter the field of journalism. After taking time off to waste my 18-21 years, there's no way that I want to enter the consolodated, ideological quicksand that the Canadian newspaper industry has become.

I've developed a well-trained bullshit detector in my time, and it goes off so badly when I hit the National Post that I only blow the 50 cents on it when I think I can stand filtering out all the crap to get at the real news.

(Or as "real" as you can get when your validator is a newspaper of a slightly less ideological slant, such as the Globe and Mail.)

From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214

posted 30 June 2001 10:08 AM
So, Andrew Coyne may be someone I'd disagree with, but I can't entirely dismiss a man who has a sense of humour:

It brings up a point though. With the demise of Stockwell Day, you can hear a cock crow thrice in the editorial meeting rooms of Canada's right wing papers.

It wasn't that long ago that the Post and the Sun Media was doing it's best, finding flattering photos of Stock to run with fawning articles that proclaimed his fiscal genius in Alberta, his dynamic youth and his charisma.

Yes, charisma, stop laughing.

They even tried to paint people like me with the bigotry brush who brought into question, not Stock's personal beliefs, but how they illustrated the man's wanton disregard for logic. It's fine to be a true believer. I love living in a place where people can believe as they wish. It's too bad Stockwell Day supporters, or former supporters, don't extend that tollerance to people who don't want to vote for a looney.

And, in the end, who was correct?

No, Coyne and the rest of them would like to disavow all knowledge of their political saviour with a little humour and more back peddling since that guy tried to kayak over Niagara Falls years ago, but it doesn't wash with me.

Coyne could go skinny dipping in a vat of Coty Musk for Men, but the smell of Stockwell Day on him would still come through.

posted 30 June 2001 11:34 AM
The writers are trying to promote their brand of crapitalism to sell more useless widgets to the bovine Canadian public in order to support their jobs. It's not like these journalist are anywhere near the entrepreneurs they like people to think they are. Their job is to sell audiences to advertisers. The columns are not much better than the ads. Infotainment at best. Advertising eats up to much of space. I try to limit how much crap I can see and dump into my brain. I would recommend not buying these broadsheet newspapers and resisting the temptation to even open them and view the ads. I already know who the propagandists are and can easily predict what they are going to say, and more importantly what they are not going to say. Reading this shit is like looking at a car accident. There are far more reliable news sources written by far more knowledgeable journalists. The problem with those news sources, such as Z Magazine is that they cost ten times as much and require a greater than grade 6 reading level. I sound just like them. I couldn’t sleep at night having to do this for a living.

posted 30 June 2001 12:23 PM
Yes, but I do think columnists prepare the way in the court of public opinion for the policy to come.

Where did you hear the idea about user fees from first? The politicians, or their shills, the columnists?

I think it does tell you what is coming down the pipe.

I'm not sure that columnists, or newspapers for that matter have the ability to sway public opinion like they might have had in decades previous. I think they serve to alert grass roots idealogues on the right to the next policy push, and get them on side.

What the mainstream papers and media do accomplish is to set the public agenda for what is to be discussed. That's why the left seems to be on the deffensive so much.

So, perhaps in the big picture they do still have much influence on public opinion.

We've seen the damage that loss of credibility can do to a political party. Look at the drop in Alliance support. Astounding.

If, through reasoned debate (and not the vitriole and hyperbole I've allowed myself to enjoy throwing out) we can disolve the credibility of the messenger for the agenda setters, perhaps we can go back on the offensive again? After all, as articulate as some of these columnists are, they still ahere to fallacious arguments.

posted 30 June 2001 01:35 PM
Tommy Paine: I think you have raised many interesting points initiating this thread. Thanx!

My perspective is the corporate media are useful mainly because of some of their columnists. Of course, some columnists are better than others.... in that they more clearly and succinctly express their (or their employers') opinions. Others, I believe, are more than a few bricks short of full load --- and rotten writers to boot!

Tubby's columnists are, I think, mostly second grade and as already noted, little more than mouthpieces for his Lordship. The Gloom & Doom crowd seem more literate and organized in their representations. I find the the Stir and the Sin columnists simply uninteresting.

Then there are the "other mass media columnists" --- in newspapers such as the Christian Science Monitor, the Indy Media, and even the NY Times --- many of whom are not only well informed but also stimulating.

But I don't consider the corporate mass media as reliable "news" sources or "reporters of fact" or even purveyors of considered, dispassionate opinion.

Thank gawd for the Internet. There are lots of alternate news/opinion sources out there. I guess the trick is being ready, willing and able to skeptically filter...

It is nice to see Mr. Margolis opine on the side of international justice. Yes, the French are rather hypocritical, if what Mr. Margolis says is accurate enough, and I don't have much reason to doubt it.

Okay, I have a bit, but I won't mention Mr. Margolis' rather fanciful column a while back that had the Italian Free Masons (or was it Rosicrucians? or the Knights Templar?) involved in a complicated plot with the Soviets to assassinate the Pope. I though perhaps it was a satire of Umberto Ecco's "Foucault's Pendulum", but regretably I think he was serious at the time. Ooops. Seems I mentioned it. How catty of me.

No, I'll not waste my time fact checking on this one. That's not what I'd take issue with here. The issue is the use of the word "hypocricy" by Margolis.

Finally, and example of irony even Alanis Morrisette would understand.

Mr. Margolis, we must remember, was perhaps one of the few columnists that was aghast that the despoiler of democracy in Chile, Augusto Pinochet, was brought up on charges.

Of course, Pinochet was a fascist dictator, not a democratically elected socialist leader. Socialist, you might notice, seems to be a dirty word with Mr. Margolis. In Mr. Margolis' world, only socialists seem to be able to do wrong. The fascists like Pinochet only do what they have to do in order to restore good order. After all, wasn't Chile restored to democracy after only a few short decades of repression?

This enables Mr. Margolis to sit down and break bread with, according to him in previous name dropping columns, none other than the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissenger. One wonders, if Mr. Margolis really got his wish and we saw an end to hypocricy in international justice, what would become of his friends?

I might be wise to deffer to Mr. Margolis on the subject of hypcricy, however. It seems to me he is an expert, and slinger par excellance.

His vitriolic and hyperbolic (you could actually see the little flecks of spittle from his foaming mouth in the text of his columns) attacks on then President Clinton, "The draft dodger" as Mr. Margolis liked to call him. Perhaps I missed his columns calling George W. Bush, and Dick Chenney "draft dodgers" too. After all, Chenney had more draft deferments than Clinton, if one wants to call that draft dodging. And what of George the Younger? Not only did he side step service in Nam, leaving poor saps like Margolis with the task of bringing American style democracy to villages like My Lai, he might have even been AWOL for a good part of his National Guard Service.

No attacks on this, Mr. Margolis?

You see, Alanis, the stuff in your song was mostly just things going bad and not true irony. Read Mr. Margolis, and learn from the master of irony, and hypocricy.

posted 01 July 2001 10:08 AM
Tommy P, except for the context he puts it in, Margolis is of course 100 per cent right in this specific column. All these things are true: the Gaullist government did torture and murder, not just in Algeria but in Paris as well during the Algerian war of independence.

But: the context! Not only have I never heard anyone on the left (here or in France) deny that these things happened, but: -- in the 60s and 70s the very great film The Battle of Algiers (which depicts torture practised systematically by the French) was almost required viewing on the left here, a classic of my education, anyway. I further seriously doubt that anyone in France is especially shocked at these revelations, or even considers them revelations at all.

What's scandalous there right now is the collapse of the reputations of many establishment figures who'd carefully covered up how close they were to well-known political crimes (first reputation to go: Mitterand's, but only after he'd safely died) -- but the crimes were certainly generally known.

The Gaullist generals were pigs -- this is not news. Margolis is sensationalizing and twisting a story that needs to be told in a different way.

I'm going to mugwump on this one. While I don't think being able to memorize esoterica regarding dates, or long lists of forgettable Prime Ministers makes us a nation, I do tend to think there would be great utility in having us all on the same page on issues surrounding Quebec, or Native rights. This is where our ignorance on history imperils us; not losing at Trivial Pursuit because you don't remember Sir John A. MacDonald's birthday.

Be that as it may, the author brings up the comparison with the United States. True, the Americans are united behind one monolithic mythology, if not history. I'm not sure it serves them well though in a world that is shrinking. It creates a provincialism, and a narrowness of view that is starting to hurt them internationally.

And, Americans as bastions of critical thinking? Oh ho ho. Where is the evidence for that? With the Kansas city school board that, for a time, elevated "creationism" on the same level with Evolution? Or, is the critical thinking in those other school boards that would repress the tangible, actual evidence that proves "the big bang"?

Critical thinkers do not hold sway in the United States; and their myopic education system that the author would have us emulate is directly responsible for this.

The study of history might, as I mentioned before, be helpful in giving a common fact based grounding in the background of today's national issues.

But, more importantly, the study of history should be about developing sceptical skills; about spotting the lies of omission, and how to think for one's self. All things the print media would not like to see happen.

Admittedly, today's post modernist approach to school curriculum is not something I'd defend just because the author is wrong at the other end of the scale.

While his antideluvian attitude on history education might be wrong, there is little to support in the current model. It fails in the ways he points out; and it does little to impart the skills of critical thinking, sceptical analysis and the tools of reasoned debate.

Instead, we have a hodge podge curicula developed by post modernists who believe anything can be the truth if you want it to be. The only utility this has had is as a training course for newspaper journalists, editors and columnists.

posted 02 July 2001 02:16 PM
I strongly disagree with the above posts. Self-satisfied twerpdom aside, this Dominion Institute fellow has an intriguing thesis, but what really caught my attention is his support for a cause which I have been spouting off about since my early high-school days. From the article:

<Quote>The rationale for giving skills development higher priority than knowledge acquisition is specious. To understand a newspaper article or TV news broadcast, a citizen needs to be able to check the contents against the historical record. Likewise, to empathize with the aspirations of a fellow citizen in another part of the country requires first sharing a common body of factual knowledge. </Quote>

Yes yes yes! I find it unspeakably depressing that public high schools have become little more than job-training facilities. The knowledge absorbed in classes has become little more than means to an end (that "end" being a high-salaried career) rather than a reward in itself. That's also why I think that these new in-school television channels (where the school essentially sells it's soul to the advertisers) inaccurately represent the idea that the sky is falling. IMHO, said sky has already been cascading towards our little rock at breakneck speed for years. Of course it is pragmatic to teach students techniques to be utilized in their future employment, but at the end of the day, I think the ultimate duty of publically-funded educational facilities to impart some semblance of a shared general knowledge upon it's students. There's much more to this than merely "not losing at Trivial Pursuit because you don't remember Sir John A. MacDonald's birthday." I would argue that it's constructive on a larger scale then people realize. My late father, who was a high-school teacher, attempted to stress this to his students, who in turn looked at him like he was from the planet Zarkon. They were programmed to see differently.

Edited to note that I obviously do agree that Americans are drunk on mythology.

quote:Be that as it may, the author brings up the comparison with the United States. True, the Americans are united behind one monolithic mythology, if not history. I'm not sure it serves them well though in a world that is shrinking. It creates a provincialism, and a narrowness of view that is starting to hurt them internationally.

I have always been amazed at the number of Americans who, even if they accept basic progressive principles, nevertheless have a blind eye to how parochial and provincial they seem. Anyone who points out that the USA is *not* seen as the Great Savior of the World is loudly shouted down as being merely jealous of the USA's might.

I seem to recall that very few Americans who travel anywhere go beyond the US's borders. I have marvelled that their country is declining in several important ways, and they continue to be incapable of seeing that a better way exists. Their roads are, in several cases, well beyond the "time-to-repave" point and they see absolutely nothing wrong with driving over a major highway where the concrete has been so worn that you can see the coarse aggregate. What idiot thought concrete was zero-maintenance, *I*'d like to know.

I have also talked to Mexicans, and we share a common dislike of the arrogance of Americans - helicopters belonging to the INS, for example, freely violate Mexican airspace to search for illegals trying to cross the border. We don't have such blatant violations of national sovereignty occurring here, but they do happen - the US Supreme Court, ex post facto, said it was permissible to not have to obtain extradition for convicts in other countries that the FBI is chasing down (the case involved the FBI swooping down on an apartment in Canada, incidentally). And I have a feeling that the FBI routinely backdates requests for extradition of people they swoop down upon in Canada - a friend of mine some years ago told me of a case where he witnessed FBI agents raiding the place of a person he was somewhat acquainted with. Seems that it was all made legal, again, ex post facto. He tried contacting some people in the media. Nobody would touch it.

From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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rasmus
malcontent
Babbler # 621

posted 02 July 2001 06:09 PM
BTW, DrC, I believe it is half or more than half of US Congressmen who do not have a passport. That certainly says something.
From: Fortune favours the bold | Registered: May 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214

posted 02 July 2001 09:07 PM
In fairness, Jared I did mention that I saw value in a shared understandingof Canadian history. I just object to Grifiths' partiality to rote learning of factoids.

We need in this country, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, a common-- and complete -- understanding of the basic historical context of the issues concerning our nation.

Michael Kirby isn't a regular columnist I gather. Although, serving in the Senate would surely provide him the time to be if that was his wont.

Don't get me wrong; Mr. Kirby, as private citizen, has every right in my mind to comment any way he sees fit on the subject of user fees, or any other subject for that matter.

However, my mind is rather closed to listening to a person speaking from a Senatorial podium. You see, I took rather serious the lessons I was taught about what constitutes a "responsible government". Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The Senate is no such body. It is not "of the people", being chosen from the ranks of Conservative and Liberal Party Partisans. It is not "by the people", being an appointed body. And, I see no evidence that it is in any consistant way "for the people."

It is, clearly, an irresponsible governing body. And, as such I will not entertain to listen to anything any of it's members have to say, and I will continue to regard them as enemies of democracy and liberty.

Perhaps someone else would like to comment on the content of the column.

posted 03 July 2001 04:41 PM
See my remarks in another thread re that column - run a search for the "Caligula" word - shouldn't come up more than twice.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214

posted 04 July 2001 09:50 AM
At this time of year, those of us in Ontario are familiar with hot air masses that blow up from the Gulf of Mexico, travel north, sucking up all the gaseous effluent that Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan can send us. Then we add our own to the mix and certainly we do ourselves no favour.

The idea that the administration of social programs be handed over to the church is not a new one. It's the way things used to work.Or, more correctly, not work. History nerds correct me, but wasn't that one of the major grievances of the French revolutionaries? Is our current system not as it is because in time of need during the great depression, the old church system was found lacking?

In fairness, Jonas points this out: "...faith-based charity and private philanthropy have existed for a long time in the West. Had they worked sufficiently, the social welfare state would never have come into being."

But, he quickly falls back to this dogma that the "cure was worse than the disease". What codswallop. Tell that to a single mom on welfare. "Gee, this welfare system has a few kinks in it. What we'd like to do, dear, is take your kids out of school, and put them and you in a work house. You did read Dickens, didn't you?" This system, for all it's problems at least works. Which is more than the church based system can boast.

Jonas thinks that critics who submit that this idea is just a taxpayer subsidized proselytization free for all by the churches are full of "poppycock." Well, I'll see his poppycock and raise him a malarky.

Of course the churches will use public funds to proselytize. Proselytizing is their reason for existing. It would violate the basic tennent of their faith not to. To assert otherwise is to display an astounding ignorance of the Christian faith.

Jonas doesn't explore another issue I think is central. At least with government run programs, there is administrative control over the disbursement of public funds. Would there be in the church based system? I mean, we are turning over public money to some pretty slippery characters. Jimmy Swaggart. Jim Baker. Would you let Benny Hinn hold your wallet? And how much of this public money given to Jerry Falwell would, in the end, wind back up in Republican Party coffers? Or in financing more salacious and slanderous video lies about the Clintons?

"There's certainly some evidence (even if mainly anecdotal)..." My dear Mr. Jonas anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron, much like "compassionate conservatism". Anecdotes do not constitue evidence. "...to show that spiritual renewal and reform are more likely to emanate from church programs."This comes from the belief that the religious community has a monopoly on spiritualism. This is not so, and I wish people would stop perpetuating this particular big lie.

Finally, we are left with this precious little dogma at the end of Jonas' opinion: "This is splendid because bureaucracies tend to do more harm than good. The less the state can do, the better it is for the nation."

Okay. That is easy to say in a cosy office, getting a nice paycheck when it comes to taking away something from the very poor. Let's put Jonas' views to the real test. Let's take away from him the evil bureaucratic influences that do "harm" to him. Let's take away his roads. Let's take away his fire department. Let's take away his Police protection.

Oh, but that is different? Certainly it is. Now it's his ox being goared, and not someone elses.

posted 04 July 2001 10:27 AM
Jonas is doing some fancy footwork here because he has to. He sees himself as an aristocrat, and his (far right) politics as superior in every way to what he perceives as the wretched, drab, prosey moralism of the left. Yet the North American far right keeps embarrassing him, the social conservatives especially; he can't attack them too openly, but he can condescend to them gently, in the veiled terms he uses here ...

His real target, though, as always, is welfare/charity/economic redistribution of any kind. He may imply that true conservatism doesn't amount to an "icy kind of Social Darwinism," but his sure does -- I honestly think he believes that those who go under in this economy deserve to, that it's time to bring back workhouses and prisons, and that it would be kinder to recognize that some people were meant to live simplified lives as drones and brutes.

posted 04 July 2001 10:36 AM
A libertine, is he? They tend to squeal the loudest in the depths of the dungeons, according to a contemporary of my namesake, the divine Marquis.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04 July 2001 12:39 PM
Re: Caligula's Horse Speaks The three options outlined all involve the individual paying out-of-pocket for health care...a great idea if everyone in Canada had money. As it is, for people on disability and for many seniors, just having to pay the extra $2 per covered prescription and the full cost for those that aren't has resulted in many people being unable to afford what they need. The falsely inflated costs of health implements already causes severe hardship, so those on fixed incomes do not have anything more to help with their own health care. The pay-as-you-go or insurance plans cannot work if people cannot somehow get the money to pay for them, this includes the working people.
From: Thunder Bay, Ontario | Registered: Apr 2001
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 04 July 2001 12:43 PM
Trisha, that's why I've been in favor of working on increasing the medicare payroll tax (which isn't the best measure, but it's the most politically workable, since people see that line-item on their paychecks and understand what it's used for).

By the way:

"(Economists are) apostles of austerity, most of whom would not share in the sacrifices they recommend for others." - William Vickrey.

[ July 04, 2001: Message edited by: DrConway ]

From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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rasmus
malcontent
Babbler # 621

posted 04 July 2001 12:52 PM
DrConway, did you know that they've studied charitable giving among the professions and consistently the lowest-ranked profession is economist? Now is it because stingy people are attracted to economics, or is it because the ideology, which assumes that people are self-interested and believes that this self-interest is in the long run beneficial, actually *makes* the economists more heartless and stingy? I don't know, but if ever a discipline suffered from a certain sterility of imagination, it might be economics... I naturally don't include certain self-taught feline economists, of course , nor one of my best friends who is an economist, he's one of the most generous people I know.
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 04 July 2001 05:18 PM

quote:DrConway, did you know that they've studied charitable giving among the professions and consistently the lowest-ranked profession is economist?

I heard about that.

I think it's a combination of both factors, but the 'economics turns people into stingy bastards' probably predominates.

After all, you get loaded up with the "man is an atom, and if the government just butts out, everything will be juuuuuuuuuuuust fine" microeconomic crap before you hit Keynesian macro, and even then you can run into professors with their own ax to grind who will say "but monetarism and supply-side economics are much more valid!"

Almost no serious economist will, however, deny that budget deficits can cure recessions. That much must be granted.

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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214

posted 05 July 2001 09:42 AM
Hey, I found one, a column I agree with. And what is even more astounding is I found it in the Toronto Sun:

A nice little column on Stock, it about says it all. Funny thing about her friend having the "hairs stand up on the back of her neck", I hate gut feelings, but you get them sometimes. I remember getting the heebie jeebies from Steve Forbes, because the man's face does not move from the jaw up when he's talking. Animatronics, I am sure. John McCain, on the other hand I find, if disagreeable, at least personable and charismatic to a point.

I read a Paglia column stating the exact opposite of my gut feelings. If gut feelings can be so right, how can two people have opposite ones?

I digress.

I wish there was an archive of back columns. Did Ms. Bird allert us back when Stock met with them about his "dime thin intellect"? If not, why not? Who got to you Ms. Bird? Was it that evil garden gnome come to life, Laurie Goldstien? Did Micheal Coren buy you off with one of his ear rings? Did Ted Byfield ride out from Edmonton to save the east from roaming bands of cougars and apply his hogtie rodeo techniques on you that day? Or, are you just a feminine Epimetheus? Better to play the part of Cassandra, at least you can say "I told you so", instead of "I should have told you so."

And, I'm sure I am getting too full of myself here, but didn't I just the day before yesterday wax Shakespearean on the plight of MACDAY in another thread here? Hmm.

Coincidence.

Before I get all ga ga over Ms. Bird, I should realize that if she truly was a lefty, she'd be singing Stock's praise, and doing her best to keep him in as head of the Alliance. This column shows she's neither left, nor in possession of a comedic soul.

Bear with me, I don't think this link will go direct to the column. The National Pest seems to want to make you walk through it's pages. Wear shoes, and wipe them on the mat before you come back. Better yet, burn them.

Again, the subject is user fees. Corcoran starts by trying to de-bunk Michael Rachlis' assertions that user fees have been shown empirically to be a failure.

Corcoran slips to the ad-hominem, but never uses data to bolster his claim. He throws around the word "intellectual" like it's a bad thing to be smart. Clearly, in Corcoran's mind "intellectual" is defined as "anyone who has a better argument than me, but must be dismissed because I'm too much of a cement head ever to change my tiny tory mind."

Corcoran says no empirical data including user fees exists in Canada. There is no shortage of such data from the States, a nation whose health care is imprisoned under the jack boot of the medical industrial complex. User fees discourage people from seeking treatment. In some cases, it would actively bar them.

Empirically, it does not work--- except for a select few for which it works very, very well indeed.

Corcoran goes on to illustrate why it's perhaps a good thing to be an intellectual, because it prevents one from using silly analogies like the Wilt Chamberlain drivel he tries to run up the flag pole.

Yes, Terry, we're going to change our health care system based on a sports analogy. Good god, Terry, we're not as stupid as you, you know.

It's not even a good analogy for his side of the argument. Aren't modern sporting events pretty much priced out of the hands of ordinary folk like you and me? Isn't that the main concern of opponents of the user fee scam?

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Tommy_Paine
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Babbler # 214

posted 06 July 2001 10:17 AM
One does wonder what his thoughts on campaign finance reform might have been during the Mulroney years.
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Tommy_Paine
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Babbler # 214

posted 06 July 2001 10:19 AM
905er, How did you get the addy for that column? I tried my usual routes that have worked in the past but I couldn't get anything but the home page url.

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rasmus
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posted 06 July 2001 10:46 AM
Coyne's column is very good. Another example of the need for a new political movement that can find common ground on right and left for democratic reform.
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rasmus
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posted 06 July 2001 11:01 AM
Check out this maddening waste of column-inches:

Flora Lewis always manages to tell you things you knew three to five years before her. And shameless little tricks of rhetoric like this one don't impress me:

quote: "sovereignists" (the new name for nationalists opposed to removing barriers to movement of people and goods)

Excuse me, what international meeting of powerful nations has recently discussed removing barriers to the movement of people? Only removing barriers to capital and goods is on the agenda. Don't try to finesse that, my Florzinha. The rest of the column is the usual travesty of inevitabilism and ignorance.

I'll take issue with Wente's statement that the CAS is religious too. There's an effort afoot from the religious community to brand everything a religion, in an attempt to drag it down to the same irrational footing as religion stands on.

The CAS is not a religion. Period. End of story. Saying that the CAS believes the Grebers are "sinners" is patently false. The CAS is trying to ensure that the children are not in danger. The fact a scald went untreated is cause enough for investigation, if not charges.

Not satisfied with the straw man argument, Wente goes on to commit the foulest offence to logic; the non-sequitor. Bringing in a completely different issue of teenage single moms not only does not follow, but it surely alerts the reader to Wente's agenda.

It's a developing story, so perhaps Wente did not have this view of the Pastor, which seems missing from her opinion:

How has the word "terror" been used in the past? Well, we refer to that period in the French Revolution when the Aristocracy stubbornly refused to do the the right thing and liquidate themselves as the "reign of terror". In the infamous John Clarke act of "terror" how many people's heads were removed? None you say? If it was a "terror" then the perpetrators were, by extention, "terrorists". How else can it be? Now, how do we use the word "terrorist"? Is it not used for people who blow things up? Who shoot and kill innocent people? How many buildings did John Clarke blow up? None you say? How many people were shot? None again.

Clearly, the use of the word "terror" by Blizzard is way over the top and is actually an egregious slander and an attempt to float a great big lie.

I have to wonder, reaching to the extreme like Blizzard has, what word would she use to describe the following little experience?

My daughter has epilepsy. Sometimes it gets out of control. Her body out grows the medication once or twice a year. And, although we are very careful to avoid the triggers we have come to know might bring on seizures, sometimes things beyond our control make that impossible.

Of course, we need the advice of a pediatric nuerologist.

But, gee whiz, the Tories, for the longest time left Southwestern Ontario with only one. And, for a period of time, that doctor was ill.

Not having expert medical advice when you need it for your daughter, what's that Blizzard? You've already used the word terror. There's no where to go from there is there?

Except, perhaps to say that since my daughter and I aren't friends with a tory minister, we don't merit the benifit of your hyperbole.

And, speaking of persons with special needs, I have to ask what was a girl so fragile doing working in a constituency office? We all know that from time to time, every constituency office is visited by the local crank, and has it's constituency of loose cannons. You don't have to tell Londoners this. A constituency office was recently doused with gasoline and set ablaze by one such as that. Contituency offices are magnets for protest, and for the marginally balanced.

If what Clarke did was an act of terror, then clearly putting a person with special needs into that situation in the first place was reckless endangerment.

That's the problem with hyperbole. It leaves you no where to go when you really need the words you wasted. And, it raises the rhetoric bar for your opponents.

posted 08 July 2001 11:39 PM
Terror was at least implicit in what was done. I mean, what were the OCAP people going to do if one of those staffers stood themselves in front of the door and said nobody's making off with the office microwave. I think the test of whether this is right or not is if we would consider it a legitimate tactic if it were used against something we support.

For example, what if a pro-life group decided to come into an abortion clinic and start walking out with files, medical equipment, chairs, etc... A couple of their activists get a bit over-excited - one tosses a microwave and another takes a pen and writes the ten commandments on the wallpaper in the waiting room, while clinic staff and patients mill about confused and perhaps a bit frightened. Would this really be an acceptable thing for them to do?

After all, nobody important in government is really pursuing an anti-abortion agenda or talking to groups like theirs. They have a right to be angry, don't they?

It's a pretty good summation of things, as far as I can tell. And what's rarer, there's an admission of error. Not often one sees that in a column:

"Friends who singled out Day's lack of a university education and the simple-mindedness of his religious fundamentalism at first seemed unfair and arrogant. Now it seems that they had a point. Day seems to have a severely limited view of the world around him."

I'd take issue with the lack of university education being a big deal; but then I would not having one myself. I've no way of knowing what Bliss' response to the "simple mindedness of his religious fundamentalism" was back then. I wonder if it was the deffence used by other Day supporters, that such attacks were anti-Christian bigotry? If so, one sees how misusing the bigotry label stiffles debate; and how self defeating this is in the end.

I'm not sure I would use the word "simple" as much as I'd use the word "single" in that phrase. If I had to point to one single character flaw in Day, it's his obvious ability to ignore facts he doesn't want to deal with. This single mindedness escaped the bounds of his religious belief, and was very much a part of his political life.

One would hope this is what lead Day on his protracted law suit. Bliss doesn't explore the fact that the legal firm Day employed had financial links with the Alliance Party. One could view the protracted law suit as a mechanism to funnel Alberta taxpayer's money into the pockets of his political friends. However, one should never attribute maliciousness to what could be attributed to incompetence. Particularly when there is such a sterling reputation for incompetence already firmly established. I might see Day as a dupe in a scheme like that, but certainly not a ringleader.

As Bliss looks forward as a sympathetic observer of the Alliance, I see little has changed. He was intially blind to Day's leadership problems, and now as he casts his political eye around for leadership hopefulls, we see the cataracts are still in place by the name he leaves out. The one we on the left have cause to fear.

Shtoom! Let's not give any help.

And, what does this mean to the Alliance? Day was at one time the popular choice of the grass roots. One would think there will be a certain amount of alienation there. Will the Christian right drop it's interest with Days departure? While that might make the party more digestible for some Canadians, it's the idealogues who person the phone banks and knock on the doors at election time. I'm sure the loss will be felt.

And what of the Day loyalists in caucus? There were 2/3rds of them behind Day enough not to deffect. And, stridency in the Alliance seems a common thread. I doubt the Day loyalists will forgive and forget. It isn't in them.

posted 09 July 2001 09:59 AM
You are so kind-hearted, Tommy P. To me, Bliss is such a cheap snob that I can't agree with him even when I agree with him, if you see what I mean. You picked out one example of his snobbery, the bit about the degree -- but it starts in para 1 (the IQ reference) and drizzles through the entire article.

Did you read Edward Greenspon's jokey column on Day in the Grope? Extended Monty Python jokes? (Day has gone from being the knight in Holy Grail who only admits to a draw -- just a draw, mind you -- after he's lost all his limbs -- remember "It's just a flesh wound"? -- to the dead parrot routine ...) At least Greenspon is funny.

posted 09 July 2001 10:38 AM
Well, I've used up a lot of crankyness with the likes of Blizzard and the Senator-I-shall-only-refer-to-as "Caligula's Horse". Maybe my vitriole gland needs time to manufacture more enzymes.

It's funny, but the ten point list of Day's errors is devastating. There was stuff there I had forgotten about, and a few items that the on going comedy had obscured. The column got decidedly less jocular with that.

I live in a University town and got to know a few professors in my time. Well enough to drop my sense of awe at the accomplishment, and also enough to not dismiss them as just a bunch of ivory tower egg heads. Just people like anyone else. Degree snobs like Bliss are a source of amusement, really. The kind of guy you'd put a post it note on the back of that said "kick me" or something.

posted 09 July 2001 10:41 AM
I prefer to be Bliss-fully unaware. He is just so nasty -- name-calling, insults. He sputters so much it's a wonder he's able to see what he's writing through the film of saliva that must cover his computer screen. (yech -- that was a metaphor that went bad.)

posted 09 July 2001 11:00 AM
Can't resist a little more Bliss-twitting. A couple of weeks ago, I was simply convulsed reading the first few paras of a column he wrote on health care and uppity patients (us) -- catch the tone of paras 3 and 4 of

posted 10 July 2001 09:33 AM
I need a break today from the Stockwell Day situation, and things Canadian for that matter.

David Horowitz is a curious person. In the 60's he was heavily involved with the civil rights movement. He seems at some point to have had a conversion, however. He's now one of the U.S.'s predominant right wing polemicists.

He's certainly not without intelligence, but it's tainted with hyperbole, straw man arguments and pejoratives. He likes to paint himself a victim of liberal oppression quite often, and many less than cerebral opponents often allow themselves to be goaded into taking the bait.

Quite a long column. Solon has it as "news", but it's obviously commentary.

As we see in the very first paragraph, Horowitz reaches for the ad-hominem, implying the "liberal media" isn't part of the real world. I've no comment on that. Perhaps when I find a "liberal media" outlet in the United States, I can judge for myself.

Perhaps by "liberal media" Horowitz means outlets that won't pass irresponsible spin and polemics off as "news"? If so, that bolsters an hypothesis of mine: that sticking to facts and evidence will garner one the "liberal" label. Whatever does this say about "conservatives"?

Horrowitz would like to gloss over the underlying problem here. While he complains that police have been denied due process, and goes on to say that police have gone out of their way to provide, (through rote recitation of Miranda) due process to the criminals they protect.

The riot was touched off by a culminating incident, where the police denied, in a permanent fashion, access to due process by the person they shot and killed. And, the riot itself was more about the apparent lack of due process in cases of police shootings. To many, it appears the police operate very much above the law in this reguard; and that there is no such thing as "due process".

Horowitz offers up proof that, when the police are wrong, they end up being prosecuted. To bolster this flimsy position, he points to the Abner Louima case. A case so disturbing and extreme, not even the New York Police had stomach enough to ignore it.

Far more convincing would be a long list of less grotesque crimes police have been held accountable for. But then, perhaps they don't exist because police never break the law.... with the sole exception of the Louima assault.

Not satisfied, Horowitz brings up the case of Amadou Diallo, and fingers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as being responsible for leaving a trail of civic damage in their wake.

Clearly, the civic damage was caused by a system that put scared cops into an unfamiliar neighborhood where the situation became ripe for manslaughter. And, manslaughter it would and should have been, if the venue for the trial had not be moved to fix the outcome. This was the civic damage: not the demagogues that parachuted in much later.

One must listen to the pejoratives Horowitz sprinkles through his polemic. I think one could say a lot of critical things about Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson resting on the facts, without having to stoop to obvious slander by calling them "arsonists".

And, there's a whopper of the straw man argument. Who called Rudolph Guiliani a genocidal racist?

For all this, Horowitz is a rather convincing polemicist. He is astute enough to pick a few facts and weave his invective and his fanciful interpretations carefully through them.

What makes him so effective? Why, in the end, he's of the same ilk as those he seeks to impune. He knows all the inside tricks of demagoguery because, well, it takes one to know one.

posted 10 July 2001 09:52 AM
Tommy, this is one of those topics -- like the religious wars in Northern Ireland and the Middle East -- that makes me feel defeated before I speak. I know that's weak. I try to follow as much as I can -- but it is going to be soooo long, and so many people's lives are going to be wasted on passionate sectarian divisions and positions ... The heart aches.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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quote: What I celebrate most as a new U.S. citizen is that American politics have become beautifully banal.

[...]

A South African judge recently addressed a group of students at a major American university. She began by noting that American newspapers seemed full of trivia. Then she explained her fervent hope that one day the newspapers in her country would also have nothing serious to report.

Right... it's not like 50% of Americans have no assets, it's not like there are incredible numbers of impoverished people, deep-seated racism, vast numbers of people in jail... there's no news here. It's just beautiful. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

Scan through the first bit of this one, not too much there on the subject of Day that hasn't been said a few times before.

I love this quote:

quote: Certainly the political and media elites' success at leading the country around by the nose is limited. It's almost as though the voters were smarter than the experts give them credit for.

Why is that? Well, let's take a look at the media in general, and what has happened over the last decade or more. The media has changed over to "infotainment". While newspapers have moved towards the scandal sheet kind of format, the scandal sheets have moved towards the newspaper format. Tabloid T.V. hit and stuck. Mosses Znaimer gave us T.V. news for people that hate T.V. news. Disco News.

And, columnists and editors relaxed the rules on hyperbole and shilling. Now, it's cool to be a columnist that is in the pocket of a political party. It's cool to write polemics soley to stir up the ire of the readership. The Toronto Sun even pushes the idea that being clueless is cool.

There's no arguing about the financial success of such moves. But, there is a price for that in the end. Credibility.

That's why in the old days newspapers didn't like hyperbole so much. They didn't involve themselves in the salacious details of public figures sex lives. (NEWS FLASH! CONGRESSMAN CONDIT HAD KNOTTED NECK TIES TIED TO HIS BED POSTS!!!!) This was the job of the National Enquirer. The media had it's political bias in the old days, every bit as much as today. But they were much less naked, much less in your face with it.

In the old days, they had credibility. Maybe in the end the new media style has inadvertantly done us all a great favour. The scales are certainly off our eyes.

I guess the lesson for us on the left is to stay boring. Stick to the facts. Eschew the rhetoric and dogma, and leave the hyperbole and polemics to those who do it best in the media.

quote: It's almost as though the voters were smarter than the experts give them credit for.

Yup, Tommy P, I gasped, and then doubled up, when I read that line too. Your own column following is so much more thoughtful, and graceful, than what "the experts" have been giving us -- I love the last line -- very Speak softly, and carry a big stick -- applause, applause.

Credibility is one of the hardest things to earn -- and the easiest thing to squander. But in the end, credibility is the only quality that will actually persuade people.

Those who would be moved by crude name-calling and character assassination "in the name of a greater cause" will be the quickest ones to jump ship when a more persuasive demagogue appears on the "wrong" side.

From: in the middle of a sea of diapers | Registered: May 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214

posted 11 July 2001 10:30 AM
I could not resist, Skdadl.

I sent the following letter to the editor at the Pest"

Re:"For that matter what were we thinking?" Paul Wells says: "It's almost as though the voters were smarter than the experts give them credit for."

posted 12 July 2001 11:22 AM
The National Pest site seems to be having difficulty, at least for me. I was able to get to it earlier, but now text won't load.

Dissapointing. The rounds at the Sun Media and the Globe don't seem to have anything that irks me this morning, and the Pest had it's take on Social workers and the intervention of the CAS in Aylmer, not far from me.

I think Coyne has a great sense of humour, to be honest. But, I wonder how much more can be milked from the Stockwell Day fiasco. Reading a bit between the lines, it's scary what must be going on behind closed doors.

I think we're whistling by the graveyard on this. Given that people generally un-elect governments instead of electing them, and that Liberal support is,( my guess, I've seen no polls) pretty soft then as now, I wonder how close we came to having the current Alliance crew running the country? If Day had had just a little better handling team......

And Coyne and crew would be telling us every day what a splendid job the wise, vibrant Stockwell Day was doing, too.

posted 12 July 2001 09:59 PM
Wow, Skdadl, that was one powerful column.

I found it pretty convincing, although I am one of the converted. Bottom line with me is that states have used capital punishment as a weapon of terror against the populace. On that basis alone I am aghast that there are those who would turn the clock back here. Particularly from the right, who we should normally think are against state intervention in most things: why would they be for state intervention in the ultimate thing?

I particularly liked the bit about "closure". I've come to grimace every time I hear this word now. I know I can't put myself in the place of grieving next of kin of crime victims, but I can't believe for a moment that punishment of the criminal makes the loss, or the pain go away.

What it does do, and what I think we look for in sentencing is a validation by the state, a statement that the victim was a person of worth; that the state acknowledges our loss. When we see a rapist, or a murderer get a "light" sentence isn't that what outrages us the most? That the state is saying, "we don't find your suffering of much merit, because we don't find you or your loved ones of much value"? I think that is what a lot of people are looking for and what they probably mean by "closure". And I think we can find ways to satisfy that without resorting to capital punishment.

I also liked how Wills called the deterence idea a superstition. It is exactly that. My favorite story on that is from 19th century England. While crowds gathered to watch men being hung for being pick pockets, the city's pick pockets used the occasion as an excellent opportunity to ply their trade.

It's nice and refreshing to read an opinion so well laid out. I might make one change. I don't think, when talking about murder rates I would have brought up, even paranthetically, the issue of gun control. It's too big an issue to make an aside to, and as a piece of work trying to persuade, it would probably close the minds of the intended audience. That subject would be better given the full treatment Wills gives capital punishment, in a separate opinion.

posted 13 July 2001 09:36 AM
Somewhere way back on the other columnists' thread (favourites), 905er said he thought that Gary Wills was the smartest person in the whole world, or something like that. When I read this essay, I thought of that. He is also so obviously a deeply good man. The quotes from Sam Johnson are quite the touch, too, no?
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905er
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 602

posted 13 July 2001 09:49 AM
Really powerful stuff, Skdadl. And yes, I sometimes think that Gary Wills is the smartest person on the planet. But skdadl, who's the smartest person on babble -- that's the real question.

I hope I'm not taking my life in my hands by recommending one of Terrence Corcoran's columns, but this was one damn fine piece of polemics. I'm pretty sure you'll see what I mean.

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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 13 July 2001 10:02 AM
Do you think, 905er, that we see here a phenomenon that I believe we discussed on the Comma Sutras thread: that some neo-cons have a curious cleanliness fetish, and that sometimes that becomes a virtue? Hmmmn?
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214

posted 13 July 2001 04:32 PM
Well, we see right from the start that anyone who likes Noam Chomsky is a "neo-Marxist leftist Crank", and that more often than not Noam Chomsky "looks bad."

Now, is that a non-sequitor? It doesn't really follow that anyone who likes Noam Chomsky is a neo-Marxist leftist crank, and in my situation, I think it's just coincidence. (laugh here if you wish) Or, is it an ad-hominem attack? It certainly seems to be directed at "the man" instead of the ideas. I'm opting for the non-sequitor.

And musing about what Chomsky might or might not be for or against, with implications that he is in fact *for* all the leftist dictatorships, and Communist China without attributal statements confirming this from Chomsky is without question the straw man argument.

We see the straw man argument a lot from the right. In the old days calvalry used to train by making straw dummies to charge into and destroy with their swords. Looks impressive on the training ground, but the straw men don't fight back. It's an intellectually cowardly way to argue; to invent your oponents position and then take it apart. It's kind of like playing yourself in chess, or masterbating: Okay for practice but you shouldn't let anyone catch you at it.

As for the merits of Toronto's bid and how the economics work, or not work, I'll leave to better informed minds than mine.

posted 13 July 2001 05:33 PM
Have you ever watched a movie because it was badly made? The National Post is so entertaining, and paranoid commie-baiting Terence Corcoran is the best of the lot. Reading his mental antics really makes my day!

In fact, I find Corcoran quite perceptive in identifying the ideological battle lines. But his motivations for being on one side of them are just hilarious to read.

posted 14 July 2001 10:02 AM
Jeffery Simpson launches an attack on campaign finances today in the Globe and Mail:

Is there anything to take issue with here? Perhaps. It's a little funny now the Liberals are fully entrenched in power, and the right wing in Canada is having such a hard time fund raising/shaking down corporations (yes, it's a two edged sword) the subject that the left has been clamoring about for so long now strikes them as an original idea.

But that's a little petulant of me, I suppose.

The main idea is the idea.

This marks the first time I've seen a columnist bring up the non democratic nature of how a union's membership dues are used in politics (which is arguable, actually) and at the same time point out that shareholders of corporations are not asked about it either.

Hmm. Balance-- of a sort.

What I find missing in the column is what to do about 3rd party spending? Surely, the corporate world can, and would do an end run around the rules with this-- not that the left would not try either. I'm not sure how we address this problem and hold to our desire for freedom of expression.

I see Simpson handles the problem by ignoring it.

EWW! Sorry about the side scroll; I don't know what happened there. Url too long?

posted 15 July 2001 12:45 AM
Yes, that struck me too, rasmus. But my understanding of NDP finances is ancient history. I know when I was more involved that the NDP got more from private than from Union, but I wasn't sure if it was still the case.

It was that fact that first lead me to think that campaign finance that eliminated Corporate and Union contributions was not just a good idea for democracy; it wasn't bad for us strategically.

I was regarded as somewhat of a looney, back then. Quite unfair, because I think there were much better examples of my loonyness to draw upon.

quote:Actually, his phraseology is just highly, and probably deliberately, misleading.

I have a question. Is phraseology a word? When I was in high school, we did a production of The Music Man, where the Mayor, who always bungled his words when trying to sound dignified, always used it when he told his daughter to "watch her phraseology" (instead of "watch your language"). I always thought that was one of those joke-words. But I've seen it used several times on babble, so I'm just wondering about it. I guess it doesn't have much to do with the topic...sorry about that.

From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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rasmus
malcontent
Babbler # 621

posted 18 July 2001 02:52 PM
From the complete Oxford English Dictionary (sorry the markup doesn't work here). See meaning #2

OED Entries Matched1 entry found. phraseology (freIzi:'Ql@dZI). [ad. mod.L. phraseologia, Gr.fraseologi´a, erroneously formed by M. Neander (see quot.) from Gr.fra´sij + -logia, -logy; the correct Gr. form (used in mod.Gr.) isfrasiologi´a *phrasiology: cf. fusiologi´a physiology, etc. Neanderappears to have had in his mind the genitive case fra´sewj; and theerroneous form has perh. been perpetuated in Eng. under the influence of phrase.] 1 A collection or handbook of the phrases or idioms of a language; aphrase-book. Obs. [1558 M. Neander (title) FRASEOLOGIA ISOKRATIKH ELLHNIKOLATINH. Phraseologia Isocratis Græcolatina: id est, Phraseon siue locutionum, elegantiarumue Isocraticarum Loci, seu Indices. 1681 W. Robertson (title) Phraseologia generalis... A Full, Large, and General Phrase Book. ] 1776 Ba retti (title) Easy Phraseology, for the use of young Ladies who intend to learn the colloquial part of the Italian Language.

2 The choice or arrangement of words and phrases in the expression of ideas;manner or style of expression; the particular form of speech or diction whichcharacterizes a writer, literary production, language, etc. 1664 H. More Myst. Iniq., Apol. iv. §6 The Conclusions or Phraseologies of the School-Divines touching this Point. 1669 Gale Crt. Gentiles i. iii. x. 96 Such is the incomparable Majestie of the Scripture stile, and Phraseologie. 1714 Spectator No. 616 p.1 That ridiculous Phraseology, which is so much in Fashion among the Pretenders to Humour and Pleasantry. 1771 Burke Corr. (1844) I. 254 Men, according to their habits and professions, have a phraseology of their own. 1857-8 Sears Athan. 6 Religious phraseologies from which religious ideas have been expunged. 1875 Jowett Plato IV. 130 Parmenides..is the founder..in modern phraseology, of metaphysics and logic.

3 (See quots.) Obs. rare-0. 1670 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 3), Phraseology, a speaking of Phrases, or of the proper form of Speech. 1678 Phillips (ed. 4), Phraseology, (Greek) a Discourse of Phrases, or an uttering of Phrases in common Speech.

4 Mus. Arrangement of phrases. Obs. 1789 Burney Hist. Mus. IV. 571 The want of symmetry in the phraseology of his melodies.

posted 19 July 2001 08:04 AM
Hey cool! Thanks for that link - I think I knew there must be online dictionaries, but I've never come across them before this. Sorry for digressing from the topic. I just subscribed to the Globe and Mail (it's the only one with a decent student rate - $6 a month!) so I should have something to say on this topic eventually...
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 19 July 2001 08:18 AM
I know this is really lazy of me, but I realize now that I had really come to rely on this thread and Tommy P to get me up and raging and roaring every morning. I realize it now, of course, because I've been missing Tommy these last few days.

Tommy, what can I tell ya? You're a leader, no point in denying it. Come home, Tommy.

University of Toronto politicial scientist Neil Nevitte, in his book The Decline of Deference,says Canadians are more ready to defy authority -- by means of boycotts, consumer protests and mass demonstrations -- than either Americans or Europeans, a conclusion he reached after tracking core values in European, U.S. and Canadian society over 20 years.

He cites two reasons: Canadians have more egalitarian families than Europeans or Americans, which means we are raising our children not to be deferential. And attainment of post-secondary education has increased more sharply in Canada than in America or Europe. The more you know, the less you submit.

In sum, we are a rebellious-at-the-drop-of-a-hat, non-deferential society. That is the authoritative Canadian mythology. Yes, we are less litigious than Americans. That is maybe because we take to the streets first.

Terence CorcoranNational PostYou could draw a pretty solid line linking the street-level thuggery in Genoa to the sophisticated bureaucratic mob role that emerged in Bonn over the weekend. While protestors and demonstrators mounted their campaign against free-market globalization in Genoa, the political gang in Bonn rammed through their version of anti-market globalization, the Kyoto Protocol.

Street violence has its distinct styles and approaches: Taunt police, create theatre, use violence and keep in sight of the cameras. Different skills are needed to pull off a Kyoto agreement on global warming. When politicians and bureaucrats meet to roll the public, they do it quietly and behind closed doors. Keep the cameras away, avoid all public scrutiny, set short-term artificial deadlines and stage secret all-night meetings that force a fake "consensus" that gets announced as a breakthrough.

In an era of anti-globalization fervour, the Bonn meeting passed the world's greatest globalization compact without a peep of protest. "We have delivered the most comprehensive and difficult agreement in human history," said a jubilant New Zealand official. Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment minister and climate change extremist who chaired the conference, captured the essence of Bonn. "Now that globalization is meeting so much criticism, it is extremely important to show that global developments ... can be met and addressed by global responsible decision-making." In other words, we're going to fight globalization's critics by giving them a dose of globalization.

The official consensus on the new, improved Kyoto is that the United States -- the only nation to make an attempt at a principled stand in Bonn -- has been "isolated." It's a spin that might not last long. To paraphrase another famous isolationist joke: United States isolated -- rest of world cut off. Especially, one might add, Canada.

As a result of the Bonn pact on Kyoto, moreover, the rest of us are now united in an agreement that has the backing of such centres of global freedom as Iran, China and Russia. "This represents the triumph of multi-nationalism over unilateralism," said Iran's ambassador to the United Nations.

In Canada's case, the message is one of distinct policy chaos. The Chrétien government, playing a dangerous multilateral game of economic chicken, apparently helped save the Kyoto Protocol by working out a tricky compromise with the Europeans over carbon sinks. Street thugs batter down barricades; multilateral negotiators pummel their principles. On four issues, Canada scored hollow victories by agreeing to compromises that will do Canada no long-term good.

Carbon sinks: In the original 1997 version of Kyoto, Prime Minister Chrétien committed the Canadian people to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to unattainably low levels by the year 2012. The latest projection is that Canadian emissions will hit 770 million tons of carbon by the year 2012, about 30% above the 570 tons set under Kyoto. Ottawa had claimed it would insist on the right to offset the carbon emissions by deducting carbon absorbed by so-called carbon sinks, such as forestry and agriculture.

The Europeans, who have no sinks, had insisted they would never accept sinks. The compromise is that sinks are now part of the agreement, but at such reduced levels that Canada has given up a major advantage. In Bonn, Canada agreed to limit its sink claim to 12 million tons a year, a fraction of total emissions.

Emissions trading: The amount of emissions trading possible under Bonn is severely restricted. Less trading would mean higher prices for emissions, which means Canadian taxpayers will end up paying high prices for emissions rights that will be used to subsidize economic development in Russia.

Clean energy agreement: Canada had sought the right to deduct the emission reductions that might occur when Canadian gas is exported to the United States. If that gas were used to reduce U.S. emissions for dirtier coal, Ottawa claimed Canada should get the benefit. That didn't happen in Bonn, and may never happen. Herb Gray, deputy prime minister and Bonn negotiator, said yesterday he hopes to get these ideas incorporated through later negotiations. Good luck.

Penalties for non-compliance: Somehow, Canada has agreed that there would be severe penalties for countries that fail to meet their 2012 targets. For every ton of carbon above target by 2012, Canada will have to pay an additional penalty of 1.3 tons in the period that begins in 2013. Under current projections, Canada would have to shut down its economy to meet post-2013 penalties.

So Canada is now prepared to sign a major global commitment to curb economic activity and meet unattainable carbon emissions targets -- while our major trading partner does not. While it's nice to see our Prime Minister locked in policy agreement with Vladimir Putin over global warming, exactly how much bilateral energy trade can Canada expect with Russia compared to the United States?

Over the longer run, of course, Kyoto is not quite a sure thing. As more than a few enthusiasts noted in comments yesterday, the Bonn version of Kyoto is an important "first step" on the road to global control over the world market for energy. The push is now on to ratify by 2002. Can Canada afford to be isolated from the United States?

Yes "thag" in Hindi is a robber, specially a type that kills their victims. There were many varieties of robber in India in former times, and usually each caste or type of robbers had its own name. What type you were might all depend on something as basic as the method of killing or snaring the victim. With a rope or a long stick or whatever. The Hindi noun is "thagi" which comes into English as "thuggee", and the current noun is of course "thuggery".

quote: ... regulations were supposed to be subordinate to the statutes that authorized their creation. Regulations were intended to allow bureaucrats to fill in minor legal details, such as the appearance of a form, so that parliamentarians wouldn't have to waste their time on such trivia.

Somewhere over the past few decades, a transformation has occurred. Statutes, it seems, are now subordinate to regulations. Statutes merely sketch out the territory that regulations can romp through; regulations lay down the actual law. The power that Canadians believe is vested in the people and exercised through their elected representatives is instead being delegated by those representatives to a small clique of the ruling party. This elite group has perpetual carte blanche to amend or even nullify the provisions passed by the houses of parliament. Parliament's words are mere default provisions in case Cabinet neglects to countermand them.

She has this exactly right. Leave aside the fact that she focuses on the federal Liberals, and ignores the government that has really embraced this development wholeheartedly: Mike Harris's PCs. (Actually, Bob Rae was almost just as guilty of this.)

This has got to be one of the biggest unreported stories in Canada today.

From: in the middle of a sea of diapers | Registered: May 2001
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 27 July 2001 09:00 AM
Hi, 905er, and thanks for this. It is news entirely to me -- I've never heard of this before, never thought of this before.

Relative to Harris and co., is this the sort of manoeuvre that is allowing premier and cabinet to slip out of responsibility for, eg, Walkerton, or nursing home scandals, where loosening or lowering of oversight permits disasters? As I say, this is a new thought to moi.

(An aside: Karen Selick's very name is a bit of an alarm to me. She is an excellent civil libertarian, I agree; but she's that because she's almost Robespierre-ist in her commitment to the iciest neo-lib rationalism I know in Canadian journalism. Won't go into illustrations here; but I could. )

posted 27 July 2001 09:30 AM
Agree with you completely on Selick, skdadl -- especially, as you write, her "Robespierre-ist ... commitment to the iciest neo-lib rationalism I know in Canadian journalism." I checked out her website once and almost froze up my computer.

I don't think the Walkerton/nursing homes scandals are really relevant here. More to the point is something like the amalgamation bill, or anything having to do with welfare/social services. The bills they pass are almost completely devoid of anything practical -- but the devil (and I mean that almost literally) is in the details. These details are worked out by unelected Harris cronies, with no public debate, out of the uncomfortable glare of publicity.

Everyone talks about statutes in the media -- whether that's workfare, amalgamation, rent deregulation, etc. But the real action nowadays is happening in regulations -- ask anyone who works in government (and is willing to talk about it). And regulations aren't voted on, debated, or even (very often) reported.

From: in the middle of a sea of diapers | Registered: May 2001
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 27 July 2001 09:37 AM
Well then, how do us ordinary persons keep a watch on this development? Can you think of any reporters who try to follow the details -- eg, what have you thought of Ibbotson's or Barber's reporting on amalgamation, or the development stories?
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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905er
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 602

posted 27 July 2001 10:12 AM
I'm really thinking hard about your question, skdadl, cause I really love Ibbitson's and Barber's reporting in the Globe. But it seems to me that what they are doing amounts to tea-leaf reading. They're very good at it, and they're able to figure out the broad contours of an issue by talking to people in the know, but the actual cogs in the machinery remain hidden.

People recognize this, I think, instinctively. But what I would love to see is a multipart special report on the transformation of Canadian democracy. It could be written from any political viewpoint -- though libertarians and leftists are the most likely.

I don't read the Star, but I suspect they've written narrow treatments of the subject dealing with Harris. But it would be interesting to see an avowedly nonpartisan attack on this process, which is about the triumph of politicians over democratic process. And all sides -- including the NDP -- have been guilty of it.

From: in the middle of a sea of diapers | Registered: May 2001
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 27 July 2001 10:42 AM
Well, do other MPPs know about/pay attention to this process, do you think? I would think that informing us about what's really going on behind the scenes would be the opposition's job -- would in fact be an attractive task to both opposition parties, but especially the NDP -- ? Why would they not raise this issue?
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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jeff house
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Babbler # 518

posted 27 July 2001 04:53 PM
I have practiced law for 25 years, and agree that much abuse of the public comes into law by way of regulations. Harris's government is the worst in this regard, as in just about every other regard. But all the parties are guilty. For example, Harris recently tried to sneak in a venal regulation allowing Craig Bromell and the Police Association to solicit funds from the public for political purposes...luckily,Bromell and company are sufficiently discredited that it went nowhere. But the statute which allows these changes to be made by regulation, was passed by Bob Rae's government. So the legislature, in its laziness and willingness to duck hard issues, is part of the problem
From: toronto | Registered: May 2001
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 27 July 2001 05:06 PM
Jeff, please tell us: how do you hear these things, and why don't the rest of us?

(That information makes me seethe, really it does; the people of Toronto made their feelings very very clear on Bromell's "fundraising" bully tactics two years ago! Who does Harris think he is?)

posted 27 July 2001 08:28 PM
Oh, Skdadl, I remember that. We were living in Toronto at the time, and I was SO furious about the idea of free-speeding-pass stickers on people's cars. How dare they. I usually like the idea of unions, but you wanna talk about a racket, let's talk the Toronto Police Association with Bromell the Enforcer in the lead.

Enough off-topic rant. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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jeff house
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 518

posted 28 July 2001 11:46 PM
Skdadl, there is no good system in place for people to become aware of changes in regulations. They must be "laid before Parliament" for ten days before taking effect, but are not debated unless someone objects, which they rarely do. So, in effect, the affected bureaucracy writes its own law, and gets Cabinet to approve it. After ten days, it is published in the Canada, or Ontario, or other, Gazette. Then it is law.

The problem is that the legislature usually includes a section in every statute giving the Governour-General, that is, Cabinet, the power to make regulations to effect the consequences the statute is aimed at. But the devil is in the details.

quote: For example, Harris recently tried to sneak in a venal regulation allowing Craig Bromell and the Police Association to solicit funds from the public for political purposes...luckily, Bromell and company are sufficiently discredited that it went nowhere.

Jeff, I would be interested to know why it went nowhere -- who stepped in to quash it? I am thinking that I should start prodding Rosario (our MPP) on this score.

posted 03 August 2001 09:12 AM
Well gosh darn, the woman actually did some research before she wrote today! (Kidding a bit, maybe; I know she periodically does serious work like this, especially on environmental topics.)

It's a terrific column, and given her usual alliances at the Post, it will, one hopes, shake a few of their other columnists and editorial writers up a bit. It has also just given me a thought for the Couch of Social History thread. See you there.

posted 06 August 2001 11:23 AM
OH, great, Tommy P is back on the case!

Tommy, do you know Worthington's interesting political-family connections? He is married to journalist Yvonne Crittenden (whose byline I never see any more), who is mother of backlash-promoter Danielle Crittenden, who is married to David Frum ...

One bit of good fun this summer was the serial publication, first in the Wall Street Journal and then picked up by the Nat'l Post online, of Danielle C's attempt at a novel. Did you see it? It is sooooo awful ...

Conrad Black's crony and the Alliance's moneybags, about how the right should regroup. He obviously still thinks the Tories are going to believe that Stockwell's rump is negotiating from a position of strength. He imagines, eg, that Peter Lougheed is going to accept handing the west over to the CA -- I don't think so ...

There's two Peter Whites on the right and I can't tell them apart. One hails from London, Ontario and has never had the respect of the local Tories here. As a tribute to their constance, they regard him as somewhat of a loser because he took his father's profitable company and ran it into the ground. I know not the particulars; and they very well could be wrong. It's just the perception of the some of the old Tories here.

We see the usual hand wringing over the "health care mess". I take it the "mess" is that profit off of desperately ill people is not maximized here as it is in the States. It works well enough for me. But then, I'm not poised to be a shareholder in "BloodmoneyRus".

My first chuckle came from this:

quote:the lack of political accountability that leads to favouritism, patronage, corruption, and misappropriation of tax dollars.

Translation: "It's our turn at the trough!!!! The liberals are hogging all the lack of political accountability that leads to favouritism, patronage, corruption, and misappropriation of tax dollars, and we demand our fair share!"

quote: why can't the two parties resolve their impasse?

Well, it's quite simple. Why would the Tories want to reconcile with a bunch of people that stormed off and nearly killed the Tory party in the first place? Why would the Tories even consider taking on a bunch that cannot even keep their faction from fracturing? Why would the Tories want to include a team that brought Stockwell Day to the fore as leader?

Seems to me the Tories are smart to look at the Reform/Alliance not as a renegade bunch anymore, but a purge of the silly, the intellectually lame and politically obnoxious.

In short, the impasse exists because the Tories, bless their black little hearts, didn't just fall off the turnip truck. They noticed that there wasn't near as much talk of "unite the right" before the fall of the Alliance under Day than the desperate tones we now hear from those in the Alliance.

Sounds like the muntineers are now begging for a life preserver. It's hardly partizan politics Clark and the Tories are engaged in; it's political prudence.

And, I had to chuckle over White's invokement of the name of Mulroney: Truly, White is desperate.

White leaves us with an example of Liberal arrogance. White, I am sure, yearns for the days of Tory arrogance.

-------

I knew that Frum had married Worthington's daughter, but I didn't know her mother also was a columnist. Explains a lot, you know. Blood is thicker than writting ability; hence Frum's appearance on the scene.

Frum is a speach writer for the child Presidenté, George the Second.

There's a certain poetry in that. A man who can't write, writing for a man who can't speak.

posted 07 August 2001 10:01 PM
Unfortunately, not much comes down to us about the original Druids.

They seemed to have been the glue between the various Celtic tribes, and probably played a roll in keeping them knit into one culture.

I was in Angelsey, the site of the last stand of the Druids years ago. I think Angelsey was called Ynys Mon when they were slaughtered there by the Roman Governor Paulinus Suetonius. (not the historian Suetonius of the "Twelve Ceasars" fame) Supposedly, Suetonius extracted all the Druid lore from one surviving priest but, if true, that document has been lost to us. I think that was around 200 AD, and occurred close to the time of the Boudican revolt, although I don't think there was a political connection between Boudica and the Druids at the time. I'm going by memory here and might be wrong.

The modern Druids described in the article seem rather more thoughtful than other religions that have sprung up lately. There seems to be a commitment to learning and knowledge that seems to be quite the opposite of other religious movements today that seem to require a denial of knowledge from their followers.

posted 11 August 2001 10:35 PM
Have you ever been to null? Their columnists are all right wing nutties, but reading them is a good exercise in ideological strife... Oh, and there's Alexander Cockburn and a couple of people with no permanent political IDs.

posted 12 August 2001 02:56 PM
I'm not actually a fan of either of the egomaniacs mentioned. Hitch is a bore who tries too hard to scandalize and who wouldn't mind joining forces with all sorts of conservative sub-humans in his crusade against 'not enough lefties'. His appearance at the conference on Hillary Clinton organized by the (was it?) American Enterprise Institute where Lynne Cheney works is an unbelievable piece of political kietsch. He's mostly right about the Clintons, but in some other stuff he decides to ignore the nuances in order to produce a buzz. The Vanity Fair Hitch is very much like that. Although. A friend of mine was a student of his at the New School University and she liked his take on the Western canon. And last year he visited the city at the Balkans where I was born and described it in his reportage as 'cool'.

Cockburn is a nice refreshment in the New York Press and his Gore-bashing can be real fun. He's much more into referencing, fact checking, and reading history than Hitchens. In every other column, though, he takes a lot of effort to inform the readers that "Oh, by the way, this is how you can buy my fantastic book on Al Gore..." And in his NYPress column the other week he wrote extensively about Angelina Jolie and B. B. Thornton's sex life... I couldn't stop yawning.

posted 12 August 2001 08:05 PM
Please do not take trespasser's word for it. Go to www.nypress.com website, do a search for "Jolie", find the right article and see if trespasser has it right. I think not.

As for Counterpunch itself, again, outside the frame, Cockburn's (and others') books are advertised. I do not blame them one bit for having to earn money to keep Counterpunch alive.

trespasser: is it rolling in dough? Does Fernwood, my favourite Canadian publisher, have it so easy?

posted 14 August 2001 04:07 PM
Mark Kingwell's column from last month is still relevant. He makes the suggestion that the next big thing is... SMALL, which I understand as radical decentralization - not just political decentralization, but the dissolution of common-all-too-common sense and the decentralization of MEANING.

posted 14 August 2001 06:06 PM
Yes, I find the article interesting (and I actually find Hardt brilliant) but I disagreed with a few things that Kingwell says. But I agree with the "small being the next big thing" idea.
From: montreal | Registered: Jun 2001
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 16 August 2001 11:26 AM
I set out to read Hugh Segal's proposal for terms of agreement between the Tories and Alliance in today's National Post, and right away I drowned in this (opening) sentence:

quote: The normalization of the leadership issues cycle in the Canadian Alliance to a more classic pre-convention status and the winding up of a cycle of Alliance-Tory meetings on possible co-operation or more begs two serious questions very much in the broad public interest.

Aaaaarrrggghhhh!!!!! Forgive me, but this is pretty much what I spend the working hours of my life trying to save from being published in this condition. So I quit reading -- might as well work, eh? Please let me know if Segal went on to say anything we need to know.

posted 16 August 2001 01:45 PM
Wow -- that is one sweet quote, skdadl. I think you better forward that on to Frank magazine's "Drivel" department.
From: in the middle of a sea of diapers | Registered: May 2001
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sean s.
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 860

posted 17 August 2001 07:44 AM
Rachel Giese had a good column in the Toronto Star August 16th (available on the rabble home page).